"Well, where's the rest of the stuff'?" Mason insisted.
"I don't know. I tell you, I know nothing about that ring. I have no idea how it got where you found it. Somebody must have put it there." Sally caught her distracted head between her hands and tried her best to compose herself. But it was useless; the evidence was too frightfully clear against her; hysteria threatened.
"Mrs. Standish gave me the stockings," she stammered wildly, "rolled up as you found them. Ask her."
"Oh, come, Miss Manwaring; you go too far!" Mrs. Standish told her coldly. "If you are possibly innocent, compose yourself and prove it. If you are guilty, you may as well confess and not strain our patience any longer. But don't try to drag me into the affair; I won't have it."
"I guess there isn't much question of innocence or guilt," Mason commented. "Here's evidence enough. It only remains to locate the rest of the loot. It'll be easier for you," he addressed Sally directly, "if you own up--come through with a straight story and save Mrs. Gosnold trouble and expense."
He paused encouragingly, but Sally shook her head.
"I can't tell you anything," she protested. "I don't know anything. It's some horrible mistake. Or else--it's a plant to throw suspicion on me and divert it from the real thief."
"Plant?" Miss Pride queried with a specious air of bewilderment.
"Thieves' jargon--manufactured evidence," Lyttleton explained.
"Ah, yes," said the old maid with a nod of satisfaction.